David Putnam - The Replacements

I lied. “He told me a pay phone to stand next to, tomorrow night at nine.”

“Are there still pay phones out there?” asked Mack.

Barbara set up her cell to type in the information. “Okay, give me the location and number if you have it.”

I recited the only pay phone number I could remember. “It’s on Atlantic Avenue in Compton.” I didn’t know if the phone was still there. A twinge of guilt rose up to ruin my day just that much more. I hated lying to friends. But I needed time to think, to make a plan. And to sleep. If I could only get a little sleep, I knew I could figure this thing out. Jonas had left little time to do either. I’m sure he’d factored my fatigue into this part of his plan.

I flopped down on the bed and closed my eyes. The answer hovered overhead, just out of reach. I could feel it. Gauzy fatigue masked visibility and any attempt to clear the air.

“Bruno, what’s the address where you dropped him?” asked Barbara. “I want you and Mack to go there and try to pick up his trail.”

“First you want me to stay here out of sight, now you want me to go? It’s on Kadota, off Mission. On Kadota, five houses south of Mission, on the right. There’s a chain-link fence with an old Mercury Marquis sitting in the front yard. No numbers on the house. I’m staying here. I have to close my eyes for a few minutes or my mind’s going to melt down.”

I looked at Barbara, her expression stunned, as I described the house.

“That’s Montclair, that’s back in my city.”

A new chief of police, and the kidnapping again pointed back to her jurisdiction. Not good.

Mack grabbed my foot and shook. “Come on, old man, there’s plenty of time to rest when you’re dead.” Another maxim left over from Robby. Like a bad omen, Robby’s ghost tainted this entire caper.

“Jonas is going to be long gone from the Kadota address, and he won’t have left the smallest crumb to follow,” I said. “Haven’t you two been listening? He’s planned this whole thing out to a gnat’s ass. He’s had two years to do it. Your time would be better served figuring out why the two years.”

“All right, but I’m still going,” said Mack. “You get some sleep. I’ll be back.”

I again closed my eyes and waved my hand in the air. Wet smacking filled the silence as Mack and Barbara kissed and whispered. Seconds later, the door opened and closed as they left.

I rolled over and tried to sleep. No good.

I picked up the phone and dialed Tara, the name for our house in Costa Rica. Dad had named our rental home Tara after the plantation in Gone with the Wind . He thought the house and grounds were huge, the largest he’d ever seen. Of course, not as large as a plantation, but a huge house on a landscaped acre could fool an old man from South Central Los Angeles.

The call to Costa Rica went through surprisingly easy. Technology. The phone on the other end rang.

Someone picked up and said, “Hello?”

“Dad, where’s Marie?” I checked my watch and computed the time difference. Marie should have been home for two hours.

“You okay, son? Everything all right?”

“Yeah, sure is. I won’t be much longer. I’ve got everything in hand here, don’t you worry about me. Where’s Marie?”

“I don’t know what you’re up to, son, and I’m sorry you felt you couldn’t trust me to tell me about it.”

“There just wasn’t a lot of time, Dad.”

“And, you thought I’d try and talk you out of it.”

“There is that.”

“Damn right, ‘there is that.’ I taught you better, son.”

“I said I was sorry.” I wanted to tell him that he had not told me about his illness, but that wouldn’t have been fair, not with what he now faced. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Some crazy old white man came by here today looking for you.”

Jake Donaldson. I tried to restrain my anxiety. “What did he say? What did he want?”

“Said he was comin’ back tonight and you had better be home or, and I quote, ‘there’ll be hell to pay.’”

“When? What time did he say he was coming back?”

“Long about now, I suspect. Yep, right about now.” Dad must have checked his watch.

I tried to think. What could I do? I couldn’t do anything from where I stood. I wanted to scream. “Listen, Dad, have you seen any men, any other men hanging around out front?”

“No, can’t say that I have.” His tone changed to firm, aggressive. “Why? What’s going on? Does this have to do with you going back?”

“Dad, that man that came over today, he’s a little off the deep end, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, of course I do. I saw that in him. I worked as a mail carrier for forty years, don’t forget, and I learned a thing or two about people. Where do you think ‘going postal’ came from? Huh?”

“This guy’s dangerous. He has priors for violence. Where’s Marie? Is Marie okay?”

“I’ll show that rude son of a buck violence if that’s what he wants to bring. I have the kids’ ball bat right here.”

The door chime rang in the background. “Bet that’s the son of a buck now.”

“Dad?”

“Don’t you worry, son. I’ll be nice right up until the moment when he decides he wants to hurt my kids, then, God help him.”

“Dad, don’t you open that door.” In the background, the sound indicated he was moving, walking across the tile pavers toward the door.

“Don’t be silly. We lived in one of the worst parts of LA for years. This isn’t a big deal, son, least not one I can’t handle.”

“Dad, he’s killed two people already!” The noise of him moving stopped.

“ What in the hell’s he coming here for ?”

Now I’d gone and done it. When Dad got mad he didn’t always think logically. “Dad, wait, don’t open the door, please.”

The door creaked open. Dad said, “Get off my property you son of a-”

Boom. Boom.

Gunshots.

“Dad?”

“DAD?”

Yelling in the background. More guns went off, this time more distant.

Scuffling.

Moaning.

“Dad? Talk to me. Dad?”

Someone else picked up the phone. “Hello? Who is this?”

“Is my father okay?”

“Hold on.” The man spoke with a slight Spanish accent, Costa Rican. In the background, the man’s voice more distant. “Sir, are you shot? Have you been shot?”

I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to run, to do something, but stood there helpless.

The man came back on the phone, “Yes, he appears to be fine. We will have him checked out with the medics. To whom am I speaking?”

“Oh, thank God. I am the man’s son. Are you the men working for Ansel Tomkins?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“What just happened there?”

“I must apologize for our slow response. We had no reason to believe the man who came to visit would pull a gun. But he did, he pulled a large pistol. My partner, José Rivera, shot him from across the street. This wounded man ran through the house, out the back and over the fence. I don’t know how he accomplished this feat, as he appeared to be elderly, and then you add the gunshot wound. This was quite remarkable. He left a blood trail.”

This man, cool and calm, handled himself and spoke like no professional I had ever worked with, not one who had just been in a shooting. The money I gave Ansel bought the best. I shouldn’t have ever questioned Ansel’s integrity.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. Are you sure my father is okay? Can you put him on?”

“Yes, one moment, please.”

“Hello?”

“Dad, are you okay?”

“Yes, of course, what a silly question. That son of a buck pulled a gun. Didn’t say a word, just pulled it out. He was gonna shoot me in the face. I saw it in his eyes. I never met the man before today, and he was just going to shoot me for answering my own damn door.”